INDIANAPOLIS -- It was a perfect American moment in need of a perfect American hero. Bottom of the ninth. Two out. Score tied. The crowd on its feet, waving flags, stomping feet, killing its vocal chords in lusty cheer: "U-S-A! U-S-A!"Drama? Ho. You'd have to look a long while for a purer drama than this: a humid August afternoon on a minor league field where perhaps the two best amateur baseball teams in the world, one Cuban, one American, had scratched and pounded and finessed each other to a 4-4 deadlock with one out to go before extra innings. Drama? Come on.
He did not look older. He did not look wiser. He looked tired. Which is what you'd expect. "What do you think?" someone asked Chuck Long, just moments after the Lions dropped a heartbreaker, 16-13, to the Chicago Bears.He shook his head. "Now I know what Eric Hipple's been going through all these weeks," he said.Now he knew. First-hand experience. This was supposed to be Chuck Long's night, his debut as starting quarterback. Monday Night Football, the nation watching. And for a few brief moments it was all he could have wanted.
MINNEAPOLIS -- They were pouring champagne on each other's heads, screaming, laughing, celebrating in the usual way for world champions -- when suddenly, in the midst of this clubhouse euphoria somebody screamed: "OUT TO THE FIELD!" And out they charged, en masse, all these alcohol-soaked Minnesota Twins, the most unlikely World Series winners in some time, pushing through the tunnel and slapping hands and camera lights and finally, finally, emerging back to where it all happened, back to the Metrodome field where they had captured Game 7, a title, and the hearts of every Minnesotan an
ATLANTA -- I know many of you would like to strangle the Lions for winning Sunday and dropping themselves from No. 1 to No. 2 in next year's draft. To which I say: Go ahead, do it.No. Just kidding. Where's your Christmas spirit? We might have looked at the Lions as the worst team in football all year -- but obviously we weren't looking far enough.Here in Georgia, in the last game of the season, we found a creature few people thought existed. The Atlanta Falcon. So inept, so pathetic, that Detroit looked playoff-bound by comparison.
This said it all: Frank Tanana darting off the mound, scooping up the ball, turning to first baseman Darrell Evans and -- with a lollipop smile already on his face -- flipping it underhand for the final out.One, two, three, leap!Happy ending."Whenever I think of this game from now on," Evans said, champagne soaking his face, after the Tigers had beaten Toronto, 1-0, to capture the American League East, "that's the moment I'm going to see. Frank coming towards me, the ball in his hand, his eyes as big as saucers. . . . Oh, man. Oh man. I'll never forget that."
BOSTON -- I vote we make the logical decision here. I vote we do the only decent thing.I vote we forget Game 1 ever happened."Great series starting tonight," I say, as I sit in the coffee shop across from Boston Garden. "Two great teams, meeting for the Eastern Conference title. Yes, sir. Should be a heck of a series.""What about Game 1?" says a man next to me."Beg your pardon?""Game 1? Tuesday night?""This is Game 1. Tonight. Thursday.""What about Tuesday? What about the Boston Garden? What about that Game 1?""Beg your pardon?"
WIMBLEDON, England -- The last American tennis man was getting the hell beat out of him. His racket was bleeding. He looked weary, overmatched -- he looked old, and that was the worst thing, because Jimmy Connors is old, he's 34, and by tennis standards that's ancient, at least to be center court at Wimbledon, taking on a guy more than a decade younger. Clunk! He put a shot into the net. Clunk! He hit long and out. The tennis fans who had been watching him here since 1971 shook their heads grimly, like loved ones on the edge of a hospital bed.
BOSTON -- The leprechaun dies. He went stiff at the very moment he usually rises; the final seconds of a Celtics' playoff thriller. The people who filed quietly out of Boston Garden Tuesday night, rubbing their eyes, clearing their hoarse throats, these same people who just seconds before had been at the top of their lungs, sure that the magic was there, well, they were silent now, quiet as a funeral. The championship series was not over. The innocence was. Lakers win. The leprechaun dies. How many times had we seen this before?
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
